[00:00:01] Madeline: Hello and welcome to SHE SOARS. Her Voice. Her Rights.

[00:00:05] Amal: We are CARE Canada’s Youth Champions, a group of young people across Canada who are passionate advocates for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

[00:00:13] Lauren: We’re excited to discuss and raise awareness about young women’s rights and choices in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:00:20] Amal: Together, we will explore how these global issues connect to our lives as Canadian youth and discover ways in which we can all take action.

[00:00:27] Lauren: We will also talk about the SHE SOARS* project, which improves access to health and education, which are areas we want to see change in.

[00:00:34] Everyone: Join us!

[00:00:35] Amal: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the SHE SOARS podcast. In the previous episode, we met with the Youth Advisory Board member, Gloria, who is based in Kenya. We talked about the International Day of the Girl and discussed her journey to becoming a youth leader and what inspires us.

[00:00:53] Amal: In this episode, we’re going to be hearing from Jeremiah, who joined a public engagement trip to Zambia where the goal was to hear from the participants of the SHE SOARS project and youth leaders directly about their experiences with Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and youth leadership.

[00:01:11] Amal: So I’m going to turn it over to Madeline who will introduce Jeremiah and talk a bit more about his experience during the trip.

[00:01:18] Madeline: Hi everyone. Once again, I’m Madeline. I’m one of the Youth Champions. And as Amal said, today we’re joined by Jeremiah. Jeremiah is one of the members of the SHE SOARS Youth Advisory Board and he attended this trip in Zambia to hear directly from people who are really involved with the project.

[00:01:39] Madeline: So, Jeremiah, can you maybe tell us a bit more about what you did on the trip and what was it like? What were your experiences while you were there?

[00:01:47] Jeremiah: Thank you so much. I like that I’m slowly becoming a regular on the podcast. So the public engagement visit to the Zambia project sites was one of a kind. And let me just begin by saying a huge thank you to CARE Canada for visiting us.

[00:02:06] Jeremiah: And to all the project coordinators and managers who are working tirelessly to give us the results that we need. So coming to the visit, this visit was very important because it showcased the work that we are doing here in Zambia, in particular, the work that the young people are doing in collaboration with many other stakeholders.

[00:02:26] Jeremiah: Over the course of three days, I accompanied all the site visits –that’s Chadiza, Kasenengwa and Mambwe districts of Eastern Province here in Zambia– where we spoke to different stakeholders. So my role in the visits was to interview these different participants ranging from young leaders on the project to participants to health care providers. I also spoke to a young couple, which was really nice. I also spoke to a community leader, a traditional leader. And all of these people brought different views, on how the project is impacting their daily lives, transforming their minds towards health behaviours and how to engage with young people. 

[00:03:07] Jeremiah: So it was quite a visit, and you will be able to hear some of the clips from the visit in terms of what the young people had to say, which is really great. And here in Zambia, we are happy that we get to showcase this to the world.

[00:03:23] Jeremiah: In Zambia, we say ‘Zambia Kuchalo.’ That simply means ‘Zambia to the world.’ So this is an opportunity for us to showcase the marvelous work that we are doing and it’s ‘SHE SOARS and Zambia to the world.’ So we hope that you’ll find the content that we gathered on this trip very inspiring and very informative because it gives you context in terms of the Sexual and Reproductive Health landscape, the engagement of young people in the country and here in Africa.

[00:03:53] Amal: Thank you so much, Jeremiah. I know this episode is going to be a bit different; we’re going to be sharing some clips from the interview that you conducted with Maryner. So if you could, speak a little bit more about that interview and how you found meeting with her.

[00:04:08] Jeremiah: Yeah, definitely. So actually the first person I spoke to on this trip was Maryner, and Maryner is an African Inspiring young leader who participates in the SHE SOARS project and she stays in Chadiza district of the Eastern Province of Zambia. She was trained as a youth researcher and also leads a group of 15- to 19-year-old girls, where they discuss and learn about Sexual and Reproductive Health.

[00:04:34] Jeremiah: And herself, she’s also 19-years-old. The beauty about that is that there is peer-to-peer learning there. So she is able to interact with her friends. She is able to be at their level and they’re able to relate to one another. And it was also fascinating to hear about how the project has transformed her personal life as well.

[00:04:55] Jeremiah: We also want to know how the project is changing people’s behaviors and their mindset. I was very happy to hear, for example, where she spoke about her mother getting on board and always encouraging her to go for these meetings. She has this support system and we can see how the community is coming on board.

[00:05:14] Jeremiah: It was also very fascinating to hear how she has gained a deeper appreciation for the work in health and many other things that are happening in her district. Also, she has been able to take some of these learnings into other spaces that she’s found. She spoke about how she is able to influence her friends. She is able to talk to them about Sexual and Reproductive Health and learning some of the barriers they face. Let’s take a listen.

[00:05:39] Maryner: ​Hi, my name is Maryner Lungu. I’m a youth researcher on the SHE SOARS project and the activities that we do. What motivated me is that I really wanted to impact change in my community. We conducted research on adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and the social and cultural norms that affect us young people from accessing services.

[00:06:03] Maryner: From that research, we concluded that most adolescents were not free at first to access services from the clinic because the clinic staff were not confidential enough.

[00:06:13] Maryner: The information used to be spread everywhere at any time. Anyone who would come to access a certain service, if you are under the age of 20, they would disclose that information and they would judge you there and then. We now get responses like we are coming to access them from the clinic because it is youth-friendly now. We don’t only find them at the entrance of the clinic, sometimes even in the youth-friendly spaces.

[00:06:38] Madeline: So one thing that came up was the barriers to accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights services, and how that has changed over the course of the SHE SOARS project. Maybe Jeremiah, you can give us more context of barriers in terms of privacy for young people when accessing things like contraceptives and family planning services, and how the nurses in the community have been doing a lot of work to change attitudes and make it so that young people feel a lot more comfortable accessing those sorts of services.

[00:07:15] Jeremiah: Yeah, that is true. And it is quite alarming because think of a situation where you really need a service as a young person. You step into this health facility, and while the nurses are trying to offer you this service or information, they are a bit hesitant about it and there is no privacy to make matters worse.

[00:07:35] Jeremiah: It makes young people shy away from accessing the health facility. They would in turn go to other sources which is very disheartening because then we don’t know where they are going and the information that they are being given. But with the coming of the SHE SOARS project, it has been able to train healthcare providers in norms transformation.

[00:07:54] Jeremiah: Because remember where Maryner lives is rural district, that is really embedded in culture and tradition. So they respect these things to the core but the project has been able to break down norms and say, look, when a young person requires a service, it is actually their right.

[00:08:13] Jeremiah: They deserve privacy and when you do that, you respect their rights. So the SHE SOARS project has been able to begin to tackle some of those issues. Of course, we still have a long way to go because some health facilities, for example, don’t have youth-friendly spaces, and young people are forced to like meet in trees and things like that.

[00:08:35] Jeremiah: But the SHE SOARS project is also trying to advocate through its advocacy pillar to speak to other partners, including the Ministry of Health, who are the custodians of health in our country, to see how they can equip some of these health facilities with youth-friendly spaces.

[00:08:53] Amal: Thank you so much, Jeremiah, for talking about some of the barriers that are being faced. And we want to pass it over to Maryner’s interview where she talked personally about her overcoming pushback when it comes to being an advocate for Sexual and Reproductive Health.

[00:09:08] Maryner: I knew that most of my friends didn’t want to interact with me because I was participating in adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health activities. They think I don’t have the right mindset, that I’m not fully developed to know what is good for me. I can’t talk about contraceptives to any community leader because they will think, what can you tell me?

[00:09:28] Maryner: Because of the cultural practices that surround us. Somehow I have responded to those challenges. The goal that my mom always tells me is to stay focused. My mom is very supportive. She’s not one of those parents who would say, stay away from sex, but if you’re engaging in sex, can you use protection?

[00:09:48] Maryner: If you know you’re doing the right thing, passing out information is not the wrong thing. It’s according to how you take that information. So for me, I believed in what I wanted to do. So even though my friends said, ‘No, you can’t be talking about condoms or contraceptives, look at you, that’s not Christian enough.’

[00:10:04] Maryner: I just ignored them. And I just gave them some advice. When someone is giving you information, it is up to you how you take it and what you do with it. So I shouldn’t be seen as a bad person because I’m telling you something. If you don’t like what I do, then it’s okay. But if you still want to engage with me, I would appreciate it. But I wasn’t rude at all.

[00:10:25] Maryner: I just gave them an option because you know, in life we meet different people. Sometimes it takes time. When people see you at the beginning, it will be very hard. They won’t be able to accept what you’re doing. But when you exercise a lot of patience, they will come on board. They have accepted me the way I am and how I’m helping this project.

[00:10:44] Jeremiah: I think for me this was quite also an emotional moment, I must add, because it made me reflect on my own journey as an advocate. It is never easy as a young person to be able to speak about Sexual and Reproductive Health, for example. Because you are just deemed as a bad person who likes to have sex, you know, who just likes to talk about all of these things.

[00:11:07] Jeremiah: They position you and put you in a box, but Maryner’s thoughts in that clip represent a lot of young people in the country, I must add. It’s the focus. It’s the discipline. It’s the drive. It’s the passion that always leads us to wake up the following day after we are rebuked and go again and again and interrogate these issues.

[00:11:32] Jeremiah: Because we know that if we stay silent, if we do not speak about these issues, that is when our lives begin to end. So yes, it’s true. It’s not easy. But I like the fact that the project has been able to also instill support from her parents, which is very good.

[00:11:50] Jeremiah: So she has a very strong support system that ensures that even when she feels alone that day, she is able to go back home and pick herself up. Most importantly, also what she mentioned is patience. And this project is across seven years, because remember, it is not easy to attain mindset and behavior change to transform social and cultural norms, for example. It takes time. But you see, on the SHE SOARS project, we have enough time to be able to begin to change some of these things. So I agree with Maryner that we need to exercise a lot of patience.

[00:12:29] Jeremiah: Because when we do that, other young people and other stakeholders come on board and accept and actually recommend us for being able to speak up about such issues. The most important thing is that we are creating meaningful change. So big ups to Maryner and the many other youth advocates, and you too, for speaking about these issues.

[00:12:48] Madeline: Thanks, Jeremiah. Yeah, that’s something that really struck me with this clip as well listening to Maryner talk about the importance of patience and trying to get people to hear you out, even if they don’t agree with you. I think that is something that can be so frustrating, especially as a young person when people might already be predisposed to not really take you seriously or believe that you know what you’re talking about. It can be so frustrating when you feel like you have an important message to share and people just aren’t willing to listen to you.

[00:13:22] Madeline: But I agree. I think what it requires to break down those norms and get people to be willing to talk and think about these important issues is taking a step back and acknowledging that you come from different places, and not giving up on what you believe in and continuing to advocate, even when it feels like people aren’t really listening.

[00:13:42] Jeremiah: Yeah. I like that so much. And it is a principle that has stayed close to me. When something is hard, it is worth pursuing. So when you start to speak about these issues and they become very hard, then you know that there is something here and it’s worth pursuing. The persistence and patience move together.

[00:13:59] Jeremiah: And before you know it, you become a well acquainted, young advocate like Maryner, who is able to speak about these issues in front of her traditional leaders, in front of her civic leaders, in front of her fellow young people, which is not an easy thing. So the core is for young people to be very persistent while being patient as they speak about these issues.

[00:14:20] Amal: Thank you, Madeline and Jeremiah, for sharing your reflections about Maryner and her courage to continue speaking about Sexual and Reproductive Health . We’re going to hear a bit more from her regarding her message for young people on youth leadership and how it is important to be a leader in your community. 

[00:14:36] Maryner: Youth leadership is very important to me because it gives us the platform to voice out a lot of issues that our parents wouldn’t understand because they were brought up in a different background. Youth leadership gives us, the youth, the knowledge on how to handle certain issues so that we don’t have to wait for other people to make decisions for us.

[00:14:58] Maryner: Right now, the world wants young people. The SHE SOARS project is meaningfully engaging young people because when you look at everyone that is working and conducting all the activities, it’s us, the young people. It has given us a lot of skills so that even when we go to the community, we become role models.

[00:15:17] Maryner: That is very motivating to other youth. They would also want to be leaders at some point. So if SHE SOARS continues like this, it will engage a lot of young people, meaning we impact a lot of change in the community. 

[00:15:29] Jeremiah: That’s a clip right there, Maryner sharing her insights with regards to youth leadership. And I definitely agree with her. In the SHE SOARS project, we constantly see spaces where young people are leading. Young people are taking charge.

[00:15:45] Jeremiah: Young people are being meaningfully engaged. One of them is this platform right here. Another platform is the Youth Advisory Board. Another platform is the young researchers and the Young Connectors. It’s young everywhere you go. And I think older people must be getting bored of us because everywhere you go in SHE SOARS you see nice, bright smiles of young people.

[00:16:06] Jeremiah: And this is the practice to adopt. And like Maryner says, when you empower young people, they are able to take charge. They act as role models, which is very important. Many young people around the world have started engaging in elitist behaviours because they lack young role models. Just being able to see Gloria, Amanda, Faith, Patrick, Alvin, it gives young people hope that it is possible for me as well to be able to speak as good as you, to be able to understand these issues. But imagine a situation where we don’t have role models as young people. We don’t have exceptional young people in society who are doing really well. What happens then?

[00:16:46] Jeremiah: Young people just lose it. But the SHE SOARS project has been able to empower and let young people lead through the different structures that it creates. Also, I must mention, this has had a trickle-down effect to the community. Maryner and her team are able to lead conversations with chiefs, civic leaders and different stakeholders because the practice is that we need to be able to engage young people. Full stop. No questions asked. No reservations. And this engagement should be meaningful. When we do that, we bring young people on board.

[00:17:24] Jeremiah: And we are able to achieve what we want to achieve, which is ensuring that young people are able to freely access health services in an adolescent-friendly manner. And they are also able to influence what we are doing as project managers and coordinators.

[00:17:43] Jeremiah: I liked so much what she mentioned about being able to motivate other young people and ensuring that this is a space where young people can also share ideas. You see, what we are doing on this platform. We are able to interact with one another. The visit also posed as a good opportunity for me to have deeper engagement, deeper understanding of the work that the young people in Chadiza are doing.

[00:18:06] Amal: Thank you so much, Jeremiah, for sharing your insights. I think it’s really impactful when we have youth leading youth. And it just inspires the next generation to want to be a leader in these spaces. And as you said, it will have more of a trickle-down effect, especially when it comes to influencing change within the community.

[00:18:24] Madeline: Yeah, I agree. I think often as young people, the main thing holding us back from really being able to take control of our own lives and take action in our communities is not realizing that it’s possible. And so when we have youth in leadership positions, it shows other young people that they can really have an impact on their lives, on the lives of their peers, and they can take action to change the things that they want to change.

[00:18:55] Jeremiah: Yeah, I agree with you very much. And I always like to tell people that when you think of a young person, think of a generator. Now, if you look at a generator in itself, if it’s not being used, it looks very useless. You probably put it in the corner of your house, or the corner of your garage and it will gather dust.

[00:19:14] Jeremiah: It will have rust and rats will be playing over it. But if you pour the right resource, you pour fuel into a generator, it will light up a community. It will light up a house. But if you poured water or juice or anything else, it will not be able to operate. That’s similar to a young person.

[00:19:32] Jeremiah: If you look at a young person, you’ll probably think, ah, you know what? I can’t do anything with this. But if you pour the right resources, you’re able to empower and you let them reach their full potential. They light up the community and they light up the world. And this is what the SHE SOARS project is doing with the young people. It is lighting them up. And in turn, they are also able to light up the world and their communities.

[00:19:55] Madeline: Thanks, Jeremiah. That’s such a great metaphor. I really love that. Now, I think let’s hear one final clip from Maryner talking about some of her hopes and dreams for the future.

[00:20:07] Maryner: My hopes and dreams I have for the future, now that I have been given the opportunity to work with SHE SOARS, after grade 12, I’m going to university. I feel I will be a better person even as I’m making decisions. I really want to be at that point in life where I can come back and help people. It might not be in form of money, but because of the skills that I’ve learned, I know I’ll be at a greater height to help someone.

[00:20:33] Maryner: One day I’ll also start my own organization. That’s what I feel in future, and I see myself doing that. This world is not balanced, but as a girl child you can achieve just as much as what a boy can do.

[00:20:44] Jeremiah: That was Maryner’s hopes and dreams. I really look forward to coming to work for Maryner at her own organization. That will be so nice. I think for me the highlight on this part was just Maryner reiterating the importance of the girl child being able to achieve as much as the boy can do, if not more. More often than not, girls are the more vulnerable population.

[00:21:09] Jeremiah: And they face many difficulties, especially in Africa, but with Maryner as an example, it shows that it is possible. And she also hopes that she can be able to work with the SHE SOARS project even after she’s done with university and she heavily wants to come back and give to her community, to be able to also empower other adolescent girls and boys in her community. So really, this was a very inspirational interview for me. I learned a lot from Maryner’s example, her passion, how she carries herself in her community. She has become a role model. She has become a shining example. And this is because of the wonderful work that each and every person, part and parcel of this project, is doing day and night. So this was a very good experience. And I hope that listeners also had an opportunity to learn something from shining examples like this. Like Maryner says, you know, ‘The world is not balanced. But as a girl, you can achieve as much as what a boy can do.’

[00:22:23] Madeline: It’s a really inspiring message to leave off with from both you and Maryner. 

[00:22:29] Amal: Thank you so much, Madeline and Jeremiah. It was really great to hear from you again, Jeremiah, and I was really looking forward to this unique style of the clips and discussing about it. And thank you all for listening. Please stay tuned for our next couple of episodes.

[00:22:44] Amal: Bye everyone.

[00:22:45] Jeremiah: Bye! 

[00:22:49] Amal: Thanks for listening to SHE SOARS. If you liked this episode, please share it on social media, connect with us in the comments or give us a like.

[00:22:56] Lauren: Make sure to catch our next episode by subscribing to our channel and following us wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:23:02] Madeline: Follow @carecanada on Instagram for updates on our show and the project.

[00:23:07] Lauren: SHE SOARS stands for Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:23:17] Madeline: The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. Check out our global partner organizations:

[00:23:22] Amal: Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Restless Development for even more project updates.

[00:23:31] Lauren: Thanks again for listening. Until next time!